Nobody enjoys throwing up, but if you feel true fear whenever you feel nauseated or are around someone who is throwing up, you’re not alone.
This fear is called emetophobia and it can be rather detrimental to the quality of life of those who suffer from it. One of those detriments is an emetophobia-based eating disorder, but it’s not the same as more known eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia.
“I think it’s a little bit different, they don’t have an eating disorder, but they have a phobia and have ruled out many fear foods because of, you know, the tendency to make them nauseated,” said Winnipeg clinical psychologist, Dr. Cathy Moser.
And for Winnipegger Hanna Anderson, who has been affected by the phobia since she was 10, the prospect of eating when she is nauseated sends her into an anxiety spiral.
‘It’s a big thing in my life for sure. It takes over a lot of my day-to-day eating habits,” Anderson told 680 CJOB.
“If I get a stomach ache, I will purposely not eat because I’m just so terrified that maybe what happens if I throw up.”
The fear is completely irrational and causes people to live in constant fear, she said, as vomit is an unavoidable and sometimes random occurrence.
“Like you constantly are terrified in public and, you know, sometimes even in your own house. If you have a family member that is sick with stomach flu, it’s terrifying,” Anderson explained.
And because of the irrationality of the phobia, those who suffer from it are often misunderstood and invalidated.
“It’s very frustrating for the people around them because the fear is really like one chance in a million things that could happen,” said Moser
“Somebody might be sick and they might vomit — it’s like a really improbable chain of events that you’re worrying about.
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“It’s not a rational fear, so it’s hard for anybody in your environment to try and rationally, you know, rationalize it or reason with you –they feel as helpless as you do.”
Because of this, treatment for this eating disorder can be hard to receive, as going to an eating disorder clinic can be triggering due to the conversation around bulimia.
“If you’re afraid of vomiting and you are like me and you’re so anxious to the point where when you get a stomach ache, you start to freak out,” said Anderson.
The phobia requires a very different approach and treatment to more known eating disorders, though it does fall under the umbrella of restrictive food disorders and therefore can be just as dangerous.
“Because of that process of not eating, you might wind up with the same result,” said Moser.
“Eating almost anything can be a little terrifying because there’s always that sense of what if… like you eat something wrong and your stomach starts to feel funny and your brain immediately sends you down that anxiety spiral,” said Anderson
Moser said other known eating disorders such as anorexia are born out of a desire for control.
“Control is the primary dynamic and people who have anorexia, often it’s associated with difficult times in their lives where they don’t feel like they’re meeting up to family standards or they don’t feel perfect,” Moser said.
“There’s a lot of perfectionism, and this is one way to get that perfect body.”
Meanwhile, while there is an element of wanting control in emetophobia, it is not the primary dynamic. The phobia is often tied to a traumatic experience and it’s heavily associated with anxiety.
“I was in elementary school when someone just got up and vomited on the floor,” said Anderson
“I remember being so terrified that I literally couldn’t leave the classroom until they cleaned it up. I sat in the corner and I was just absolutely, utterly terrified and frozen.”
Anderson said she thinks the phobia is more common than people may realize but it’s just not talked about enough.
“There’s so many that are put to light in media — everybody knows what arachnophobia is,”
“But when you look at emetophobia some people don’t even know that it would be considered a phobia.
“Some people just think they’re just simply afraid of throwing up and they don’t like it. But it can come down to an actual, very valid phobia.”
In addition to an eating disorder, the phobia can also cause agoraphobia as well as complete avoidance of things such as parties, drinking, travelling, eating out, theme parks, school environments, work environments, hospitals, doctor’s offices, and more which makes the fear very debilitating.
“Like somebody could literally just vomit right beside me right now. What if they did? What if they did it? How am I going to handle that situation?” said Anderson.
“Going to hospital? Do you have to go to a walk-in clinic? What if someone is sick right beside me.”
There are treatments available for those who suffer from this phobia, such as exposure therapy, but that can be quite daunting since the patient has to actively expose themselves to vomit gradually.
Moser offers mind-reframing treatment for this phobia at the Mind Matters Clinic in Winnipeg.
“Your mind is very powerful,” Moser said. “So I do a lot of mindfulness interventions and people realize how powerful their mind is.”
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